A Very Special Valentines Day

Baking mini french fudge cakes, baking biscuits, receiving a bottle of sriracha sauce as a gift, eating said baked goods and drinking gin and tonics...

I love you, Valentine's Day.

 

NatalieDee

Happy day of love!

-K

Yep.

My roommate just walked in, and what did Pandora start playing after an hour or so of nice normal classical concertos? The Russian Dance from the Nutcracker.

Courtesy of xkcd.com

Comic-Book Superheroes in the Twin Cities: Would It Work?

Many of you may not know this, and some might, but I am an absolutely HUGE comic book fan. Anything superhero related, and you can pretty much count on me being on board. Yes, I have spent an entire evening creating the superhero personas of myself and my roommates with Marvel's super hero generator, and it was great, I'm not ashamed.

So imagine, much to my surprise, when I was tipped off to a recent McSweeney's article that discusses, albeit brifly, the potential success of America's most beloved superheroes, if they had been located in the Twin Cities.

The real TC superfolk: the delivery guys from Galactic Pizza

Arguably, the biggest problem for many of the superheroes is the Shiver Cities' lack of consolidated tall buildings: Batman could not stand atop a skyscraper in downtown Minneapolis and brood, and Spiderman would have a tough time web-slinging his way between Minneapolis and St. Paul, so he would have to settle for sticking to the side of a truck going down I-94, far less dramatic and incredibly inefficient during rush hour if you ask me. Here's the entire piece, enjoy:

By Keith Pille, courtesy of McSweeney's:

"On the Utility of Minneapolis-St. Paul as a Base of Operations for Various Well-Known Superheroes or Super Teams."

Spider-Man: Poor. The lack of a single, concentrated downtown area would greatly hinder Spider-Man's preferred method of transportation. Given that there's not much higher than three stories after you get out of the two downtowns, swinging from building to building isn't going to work. It's not difficult to imagine Spider-Man standing on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, hearing that thugs have taken over the Xcel Center over in St. Paul, and cursing under his breath as he runs to I-94, forced to affix a web to the top of a bus and ride it across town.
The X-Men: So-so. Their initial problem would be that no one around here seems to have much of a problem with mutants. With no one trying to wipe them out, the X-Men would lose some of their edge. They would run the risk of turning into hypersensitive college kids who go around looking for the slightest excuse to be outraged.
They'd have more of a reason to stick around, though, after the inevitable burst of mutant jokes on the local classic-rock morning show. Those guys can be very cruel.
Batman: Also so-so. No real deal-breakers to Batman setting up shop here, but lots of annoying obstacles: lack of dramatic places to stand and brood over the cityscape; difficulty of driving the Batmobile at high speeds through some of the St. Paul street vortices (watch the ice on the road!); necessity of getting cozy with two police chiefs instead of one commissioner; and lack of a paralyzing, all-pervading criminal culture (although he'd be welcome to come to my neighborhood, starting with the three middle-aged fat guys who think riding little putt-putt scooters three abreast at 20 mph down Minnehaha Parkway is AWESOME).
Superman: No problem.
The Incredible Hulk: No problem. Hulk's in the Superman club. When your main thing is smashing things, location is less of a factor. Hulk could smash very effectively in Falcon Heights, for example.
Wonder Woman: Poor. People around here just wouldn't cotton to a woman dressed like that, especially one carrying a magic lasso. Well, some folks would like that quite a bit, but some would make a stink about it.
Aquaman: Most people seem to like him, but Garrison doesn't, so it's a no-go.


-K

- - - -

That's Right, I Can BAKE Suckas!

This Thanksgiving, despite the nation-wide pumpkin shortage and my step-father's tri-store search for canned pumpkin, we managed to gather all the ingredients for, dare I say it, the BEST PUMPKIN PIE EVER. Read on, young grasshoppers, for my family-wide thumbs up recipie that made my non-baking soul believe that exact measurements and oven temperatures can indeed be worth the effort.

The final product, held by yours truly, the lumberjack.

Shiver Cities Pumpkin Pie

(Adapted from a recipie by the Southern butter-lovin Paula Deen)

Ingredients

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

2 cups canned pumpkin, mashed

1 cup sugar (or a little less, for a tangier taste)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg plus 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 cup half-and-half

1/2 stick melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 piece pre-made pie dough


Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.


Place 1 pie crust (made from Betty Crocker boxed pie crust, use the directions on the box) down into a  pie pan and press down along the bottom and all sides. Pinch and crimp the edges together to make a pretty pattern. Fit a piece of aluminum foil to cover the inside of the shell completely. Fill the shell up to the edges with pie weights or dried beans (about 2 pounds) and place it in the oven. (DO NOT TRY THIS WITHOUT THE ALUMINUM AND WEIGHTS, it will get puffy and shrunken) Bake for 10 minutes, remove the foil and pie weights.

For the filling, in a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer. Add the pumpkin and beat until combined. Add the sugar and salt, and beat until combined. Add the eggs mixed with the yolks, half-and-half, and melted butter, and beat until combined. Finally, add the vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger, and beat until it looks mixed.
Pour the filling into the warm prepared pie crust and bake for 50 minutes, or until the center is set. Place the pie on a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

Ta-DA! I also made some really incredible Almond-Spice Whipped Cream to top the pie. It was very easy, simply get heavy whipping cream, whip with a wisk or hand mixer until fluffy peaks form, and then add a tablespoon (or more, to taste) of almond extract, some vanilla extract, and ground nutmeg and cinammon and mix again. The pie and whipped cream complimented each other perfectly!

The final result....

I hope everyone had as great of a Thanksgiving as I did!

-K

The First Non-Embarassing Halloween Ever! (And two whole costumes to boot!)

Well, Halloween weekend came and went, and now November is upon us. This weekend I managed to sucessfully host a Halloween party for the ages, and attended one as well, with TWO costumes, neither of which, you will be surprised to hear, were embarassing in the slightest. Conclusions? Halloween WIN.

First, my housemates and I hosted a spectacular shindig as the color-centric characters from the boardgame CLUE, with my boyfriend dressing as the Tim Curry-esque butler from the film. I was a fiendishly proper Professor Plum.

From Left: Prof. Plum, Col. Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, Miss Scarlett, Mrs. White, and the Butler

Milo dressed as his favorite thing: a paper bag.

Murder in the eyes..

Next, Kellen and I attended another party on Saturday night, huriedly changing costumes because two lonely Clue characters minus their posse just didin't make sense. Thanks to my fabulous red trenchcoat, I was geography-theif Carmen Sandiego. Kellen went as the Tour de Franzia...

Yes, I did steal the Eiffel Tower

The king of class.

So there you have it, shiverers, a successful Halloween gone by, not a clown or Xena Warrior Princess character in sight. My mother would be so proud.

-K

A Halloween Retrospective: I Was An Embarrassing Child

With the approach of my favorite holiday next week, I've been thinking back on some of my greatest and not so great Halloweens. Costumes, parties, and mishaps - there have been some interesting times...

I was an embarrassing kid. God bless my mother, she let me be my own person, but I bet I would've saved myself a whole lot of grief as a kid by not "being myself" so much. Halloween is a great example. While I had my share of "normal" costumes, a great many of my costumes as a kid were super creative, but SUPER weird to my peers at the same time. You, fortunate reader, now get to travel with me on my costume-retrospective and relive the best with me.

1. Costume: Clown
The first Halloween I remember, I was about 2 years old. We lived in Duluth and yes indeed, it was the year of the infamous Halloween blizzard that shut down the entire city, except for trick-or-treaters, of course. I remember sitting in the front hall, helping hand out candy, and my mother making me get back when she opened the door because everytime she did about four feet of snow would fall into the house.
2. Cotume: Cowgirl
We had just moved to South Carolina, and I was five. Northern blood be damned, I decided to flex my Southern side. Haphazard as my costumes were, I couldn't even do it well, and I wore my mom's Australian outback hat because we didn't have an actual cowboy hat. I was a cowgirl with a Crocodile Dundee hat. AWESOME.
3. Costume: Princess
The days of dress-up meant that frilly dresses (which I absolutely REFUSED to wear otherwise) abounded, and I was a princess, complete with aluminum-foil crown.
4. Costume: Pocahontas
All political correctness and the fact that I was a blonde girl aside, this was an awesome costume. I had real moccassins, I won an apple-bobbing contest because as the rest of the kids dunked their faces in water I figured out that you can bite the stem, and my mom (very poorly) braided my hair.
5.Costume: Clown
Odd, because to this day I am absolutely terrified of clowns, like TERRIFIED of them. Yet, this was the second time (per my mother's idea) that I was one for Halloween.
6.Costume: Mariah Carey
Yes, that is not mistaken. I loved singing, like really loved it, and the thing that first got me into it was Mariah. Laugh all you want. This was one of my most embarrassing costumes, and it didn't help that I had just moved to the hostile city of Columbia, Missouri where kids were mean and, if you put your hair in a side ponytail and hand-decorated a cardboard "MARIAH" on your belt with glitter, they were even meaner.
7. Costume: Gabrielle from Xena Warrior Princess
In fifth-grade I was an Amazon woman from a Kiwi TV-show who ended up being a lesbian. You can just infer the peer-torment here.

8.Costume: Mad Scientist
In sixth-grade, I was obsessed with wanting to be a scientist, so I had a lab coat, a beaker, and unfortunately for my field of vision, my Uncle's coke-bottle glasses. I fell off the front porch. Twice.

9.Costume: Twin
Incredibly lame, but I loved my best friend, and we had matching shirts.
10. Costume: Pink Lady
My friend Paige and I volunteered at the city's Halloween charity carnival and the highlight of the evening was when an older guy thought we drove ourselves there. Age 13.
11. Costume: Hippie
Thanks to my mom, who didn't throw away some of her best shirts from the 70's, this was a repeat costume whenever I didn't have a better idea. So pretty much all of highschool....
12. Costume: Panther
My first year of college, two of my best friends and I all went as big cats. Kate was a leopard, Rachel was a lion, and I was a panther. I got pissed because everyone (legitimately) thought I was a black cat all night.
13. Costume: Dr. Frankenfurter from Rocky Horror Picture Show
Is it weird that the sluttiest costume I ever had was when I dressed up as a guy? Oddly enough, I found out that my boyfriend was also Dr. Frank one year.

14. Costume: Eliott Reid from Scrubs
I'll admit it, I'm obsessed. It was fun getting to run around all night saying "frick" and blowing my bangs out of my face though.

So there you have it- some of the best costumes I've had, and some of the worst. Expect a post soon about this year's costume (or costumes!) and see if I've yet to out-embarrass myself.

-K

Brinner with Jane and Kya, or "Cooking with Swine Flu"

Well, badass immune system be damned, yours truly came down with a bad bout of the good 'ole flu this week. After being thoroughly mopey for a whole day: wondering if I should stay home, going to a doctor who told me to stay home, and then eventually staying home wishing I wasn't staying home, I decided to use the H1N1 opportunity to try out some of my foodie-liscious new Hells Kitchen recipies. Luckily, Jane was there to help me make a delicious breakfast-for-dinner and be the clean hands to my wealth of viral plague.

On the menu? My favorites, Vegetable Benedict and Mahnomin Porridge

Homemade Hells Kitchen-style Veggie Benedict

Mahnomin Porridge

All in the Presentation...

Stick around for my next cooking-adventure!

-K

Little Dream on the Prairie, Or "The Night I Peed By A Church in Downtown St. Paul and Sang Reggae with Garrison Keillor"

The moon was out, the sky was clear, and a little over a thousand people were crowded into the street outside the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Meatloaf, potatoes, and Summit EPA abounded, and everywhere you turned people who bolstered the "Minnesota Nice" platitude were spread out on blankets or camp chairs.

This backdrop of the annual Prairie Home Companion Street Dance, although unassuming, would soon play host to the dream of a twenty-something Minnesota-loving young woman: to sing a love duet with a 67 year-old man in front of her family and friends.

Let's not be mistaken, this wasn't just any 67 year-old man. This was the man in the red shoes, the voice of Norwegian Lutherans, the host and creator of A Prairie Home Companion: Garrison Keillor.

Little did I know when I decided to start this little "all things Twin Cities" blog that I would have my own personal Twin Cities fairytale to begin with. I'm fairly certain that I'm an odd bird, and this is further confirmed by the fact that there is no sound in nature more soothing to me than Garrison Keillor's voice. You may call me a freak, but having been a displaced Minnesotan for much of my life, that droll, melodic voice was a constant connection back to the North Country and, I believe, one of the reasons I returned. Consequently, it was also how I ended up at the family-fun Street Dance last Saturday night.

At the beginning of the evening, as my parents and I and our family friends sat and ate our mashed potatoes, an announcement was made that there would be contests taking place throughout the night, many of which were goofy: "Best Loon Call and " "Best Bank RobberVoice," and some that were more traditional: "Best Kid Singer," and "Best Swing Dancers." While all these seemed fun (I convinced my boyfriend to do his Heath Ledger-esque Joker voice for the bank robber bit), nothing was really up my alley. Having not heard anything that appealed to me, I sat back, excited to spend my night watching others humiliate themselves in front of thousands. Just then, another contest was announced: "Duets" which, the audience soon learned, would consist of women coming up and singing a love song with Garrison. My mother, tactful as she is, looked at me, wide-eyed, and yelled "Oh my GOD K, you should do it!!!"

Somewhere in a past life I was a singer, and I'm not saying that the thought hadn't crossed my mind when "Duets" was announced, but it had been a long time since the term "singer" had applied to anything outside of my shower, much less in front of a couple thousand people. So, despite my mother's insistence, I refused, figuring I wouldn't even get a chance to try and that I wouldn't know the song anyways...

A few Summit EPAs and much parental cajoling later, I was standing in a line with seven other people, waiting my turn to get up on stage and sing Elvis' "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You" with Mr. Keillor himself. However, thanks to those yummy, courage-inducing Summits, there was a wrench in the works: I really, really had to pee.

Having scoped out the port-o-potty situation earlier, I realized that for the thousands of people present, there were five toliets, and from where I was standing on the opposite side of the stage, I could see the lines stretching for ages. It was then that I made a choice: I left my place in line, pushed through the crowd, sprinted towards the side of an adjacent Presbyterian church, found a grassy spot behind a low wall, and dropped trou. Being a wilderness-guide during the summer, I'm used to "creating a bathroom everywhere," but at the moment, the idea of an arrest warrant including anything about "public urination in proximity to thousands of NPR-listening Minnesotans on the side of a downtown church" was horrifying. Needless to say, I peed quickly.

A few minutes later, I was on stage, the third contestant to have a turn. After introductions, Garrison asked if there was anything other than "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You" I'd like to sing, and I was a bit shocked. I don't improv well, and my only solace in the whole thing was that I knew the song, and had been mentally preparing myself for it while I waited to go on - I wasn't sure what to do. It was here that things just got nuts, I still can't remember exactly how it all happened, but what follows is a rough rundown of how our on-stage conversation went:

GK: "This song again? How about something new? What do you know by heart?"

Me: "Guuuhhhhh..... this song?"

GK: "Really? You know this one by heart?" (a look of bordeom on his face)

Me: "Yeah, (and here is the moment where my brain stopped working in a logical way) but do you know the Reggae version of it?"

The Audience: "Woooooooooooooo!!!!!" **clap clap clap**

The Band: **Reggae intro to UB40 version of the song**

My Brain: $&;%#!!!

The rest is history. After all was said and done, the shellshock passed, and I became the twenty-something white girl who danced with Garrison Keillor, sang the Reggae version of "Can't Help Falling in Love With You" in front of thousands of middle-aged NPR listeners and lost all self-respect, but who walked away with the first-place prize and a stupid grin on her face. Strange? Hell yes.

Pre-Reggae banter with GK.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Minnesota.

The First of Many from the Shiver Cities,

K